When free software will do the job just fine

The freeway can take you to a lot of great places or you can end up stalled by the side of the road.

I’m not talking about driving your car – not that kind of freeway. Instead, I’m talking about the many free programs you’ll find online. Some are great, some are so-so, many are bad and quite a few are crammed with hacker programs that sneak into your computer along with the free program.

To save you from trying to navigate that minefield yourself, I’ll offer up my own list of free programs that actually work and – if you use the exact addresses I will include – should be free of crooked hitchhikers.

Have you ever been on the telephone with technical support trying to get help with a problem with your Internet service, your computer or some device like a printer? If you have I’ll bet you’ve been asked some question about how your computer is set up and had to say “I have no idea.”

If you download and install this program – Belarc Advisor – you’ll never again be lost for words when it comes to knowing anything and everything about your computer. It’s a wonderful program that I’ve used for years. I first learned about it long ago when a law enforcement technician – someone who examined computers seized as part of a computer-based crime – recommended it to me.

It’s simple to use and will come in handy fairly often. It only works with Windows machines, not Macs. And I’ll also use this occasion to remind you – do not search for it on Google; use the address I gave. This advice is for all the programs I recommend. It’s easy – if you search for it yourself – to get hooked up with a bad program with a similar name.

Many of you use the web to check your email. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I strongly favor using a program like Thunderbird instead. With web-based email, the email you receive resides on the web. That means that if your internet connection is down or if you change to another provider, all that mail is lost to you.

A program like Thunderbird downloads the mail to your computer. It is accessible to you as long as your computer works. If your internet connection is down, you can still read your existing email (obviously, not the new stuff) and if you change from one provider to another, you don’t lose a thing. The program is easy to use and has worked flawlessly for me for years.

In this case my link will take you to an explanation of the various Dropbox offers – some free, some not. But it’ll be easy to navigate from there to download and install the program.

Here’s why I’m such a fan of Dropbox: Remember how often I’ve warned you about the dangers of opening an email attachment? Dropbox offers a way for you to deliver the same sort of material you’d send by attachment without using email. And it’ll handle files – perhaps a video – that are too big to be sent by email.

It’s easy to use and can be accessed from any computer that can reach the web. The idea may be new to you and that’s why my link is to the explanation of how it works. Read that first and see if you believe it’ll be a good addition to your computing arsenal.

That’s all the space we have today. But let me know if you’d like for me to continue to offer suggestions for free software. If enough of you do like the notion I’ll do this more often.